^ Both.

 

The UAW doesn't want to make concessions, the bond holders don't want to swap debt (citing the bonds were to pay the UAW), and Wagoner isn't being anti-UAW enough. Nothing is getting done, and what will eventually happen is someone will come in, slash the UAW's agreements for pay and benefits, and be protected by he gov't like with Reagan back in the day.

 

if GM didn't take $15 billion from the taxpayers, then Rick Wagoner could have continued doing the tremendous job of running the company into the ground, so stop whining about capitalism.

 

Then the company would have been forced to file for bankruptcy, and a bankruptcy judge would have forced the UAW to take concessions.

 

Either way, the company is going busting either with or without our tax dollars.

Personally, I prefer "without".

 

I thought Peter De Lorenzo did a good job talking about it.

Wagoner was the lamb that had to be sacrificed to the political gods.
http://www.autoextremist.com/

 

The problem is that GM is a welfare state masquerading as a car company. They have something like 95,000 active employees, which is probably more than they really need and approximately 1,000,000+ that they are supporting with retirement/health benefits.

Unless there is some magic worked, it doesn't matter much what kind of cars they build. IMHO they should have gone the reorg route.

Now they have just told Chrysler that Fiat is your new partner and if you don't get the deal done in 30 days, we'll let you fold. How many cards did they hand Fiat in that "negotiation"?

Fritz may have been OK as CFO, I really don't know, but I wonder if the guy has a clue about product.

 

What is scary is I don't see the administration addressing or even acknowledging many of the structural disadvantages faced by the domestics. Why bail them out if we aren't going to really solve the health care costs, the protectionist markets of Korean and Japan and the depression of the Yen to subsidize Japanese car exports. A lot of the down fall of the domestic car industry is internal but we shouldn't ignore the external factors. Well at least not if we are serious about fixing problems. I'm not sure that DC is serious about fixing these problems.

 

Enough is enough! No more using our tax money!

 

I would tend to agree. GM built junk cars for years because of the bean counters. Now we are going to put one in charge?